ID is an acronym for IDentification.
CID is an acronym for Consumer IDentification. CID means a unique code. Typically, a CID is associated with a particular consumer or a purchase history.
CS is an acronym for Computer System.
POS is an acronym for Point Of Sale.
LM is an acronym for Local Marketing.
CM is an acronym for Central Marketing.
I/O is an acronym for Input and Output.
RFID is an acronym for Radio Frequency Identification.
A POS CS is a computerized system including structure for performing at least the following functions: receiving transaction information at a POS including item identifier, price, calculating transaction totals, logging POS transactions, and storing a list of store inventory and inventory item prices.
Some POS CSs are designed to sore and utilize standardized manufacturer coupon files. These files for example contain in association with one another, coupon identifier, which may appear on a coupon in a bar code format, discount amount, and product identification. As a result, a properly programmed POS CS can validate a coupon received during a transaction (by determining a product associated with the coupon is being purchased), and if found valid, discount the transaction by the discount amount. Some POS CS may not be capable to perform the validation step, in which case they automatically apply the discount amount associated with a coupon when the coupon ID is entered into the POS CS during a transaction. Other POS CSs lack any coupon files and in these systems the store clerks can manually enter the discount identified on the coupon, and the coupon identification code. Most POS CSs are designed to receive data from a scanner. However, scanner data output formats and the POS CS data input formats vary between scanner models and POS CS models.
Use of paper coupons requires a follow on accounting reconciliation step wherein the paper coupons amounts owed by each debtor coupon sponsor (such as manufacturers) to each coupon creditor (such as retail store in which the coupon was redeemed) are determined and payment thereafter implemented.
Preferably, the POS CS can perform a host of other functions, including tracking changes in tracking changes in inventory, providing reports on sales and inventory, accounting in transactions for taxes, generating orders for additional merchandise, transmitting data (reports, logs, inventory, sales, etc.) to a centralized retail chain store server. A POS CS may also be able to perform marketing and security functions.
A convenience store herein means a retail store having floor space of 800-5000 square feet, 500 to 2000 Stock Keeping Units (“SKUs”), and that sells packaged goods.
Convenience stores typically have a POS CS that includes only a single POS terminal. A POS terminal is a location where there are devices for data input and data output, such as a keyboard, a monitor, a printer, and a bar code scanner. Convenience stores each sell on average around a million dollars of non packaged goods annually. Convenience store transactions are characterized by relatively low total purchases per transaction, averaging $5-6 dollars. The majority of convenience stores purchase transactions are paid for using currency (cash). The average time a consumer spends waiting in line and completing a transaction in a convenience store is about one minute. Roughly 50 percent all revenue in convenience stores derives from tobacco sales, and 17 percent from beverage sales. The convenience store market is highly fragmented. Even chain stores such as “7-11” are often franchises in which the franchiser store control of store equipment and procedures, such as which POS CS to use, is not absolute.
Some stores, such as Subway and Ukrops offer promotions by transmitting them to cellular telephone numbers of those customers that have asked for such transmissions.
A convenience store purchase transaction (or purchase transaction, or just transaction) herein means a single exchange of cash or credit for purchase of one or more items for sale in a convenience store.
A purchase history means a collection of data for purchase transactions (including for example in each purchase transaction product identifications and quantities for items of products purchased, and date of transaction), of plural purchases, in which each transaction is also associated with a CID. A POS CS determines what product identifiers are in a particular purchase transaction by logging an end of transaction signal. The end of transaction signal, or tender signal, may be a signal in the POS CS the store clerk generated by pressing a key on a keyboard of the POS CS. A consumer's purchase history is a collection of such data in association with a unique CID so that the product identifiers and dates of their purchase may be analyzed for subsequent targeting of communications to the customer having that CID when that customer's CID is subsequently recognized at the POS. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,795,809 to O'Brien disclosing that concept.
A targeted offer is an offer limited to association with one or more people or logical address that meet certain targeting criteria, such that certain other people or logical addresses are not associated with the offer.
A purchase incentive offer is an offer to use a purchase incentive, in order to receive a benefit associated with the purchase, such as a discount.
A coupon is a printed purchase incentive offer that specifies entitlement to a particular benefit, usually a discount, contingent upon a particular action, typically purchasing items of one or more specified products.
A targeted incentive offer is an incentive offer that targeted.
Product information data means data providing information about one or more products.
Targeting criteria may be purchase of one or more items of a particular product, or of plural products, or failure to purchase an items of one or more products, or any combination of purchase and non purchase of plural products, during one or more prior visits or a current visit (or time intervals prior to or concurrent with the current time) to a retail store or online shopping sessions with a Web site.
A targeted incentive offer may for example offer a discount contingent on future behavior. That behavior may be a consumer in the future purchasing another item of a product the consumer is in the process of purchasing or has just purchased, or if the consumer in the future purchases an item of a product competing with the product the consumer is purchasing or has just purchased. A targeted incentive offer may for example offer to a consumer a discount for a subsequent purchase of some item logically heuristically related to products of the consumer's prior or current purchases.